Dispelling nutrition myths, ranting, and occasionally, raving

The bloody blood type diet is back

If you really want to drive a dietitian to drink you should have a conversation about ridiculous fad diets in front of her/him (yes, there are a few male RDs, I swear). But I digress. So, here I am, innocently minding my business, when a couple of women nearby start conversing about their gluten-free diets and how much better they feel when they actually follow them. As in, when they “cheat” they eat a bunch of processed refined glutenous food. Then, as if I’m not being tormented enough, one of them starts extolling the virtues of the blood type diet. Yes, I too thought that one was passé. I guess, like mullets and crocs, we will never truly be free of the “eat for your blood type diet”. If you haven’t heard of it you’re lucky. I’m not going to provide you with a link because if you honestly want to read about that drivel you can google it.

Yes, woman number two proceeds to tell woman number one about how great she feels when she’s following it and lists a number of the foods she can eat on this diet. All of them are nutritious whole foods. Both women marvel at the miracle of gluten-free blood-type diets. I begin to question if I am perhaps dead and have gone to hell.

Ladies, I hate to rain on your fad diet parade but it’s not the gluten. It has nothing to do with eating for your blood type. You feel better when you’re not eating copious quantities of crap food because you’re not eating copious quantities of crap food. You don’t need a cleanse or a ridiculous diet to feel better. Just prepare and eat healthy food about 80% of the time and for the love of all that’s holy (or whatever), please don’t have these conversations in front of dietitians or your children. Children learn by observing and if they see their parent(s) struggling with food issues, following fad diets, falling off diets, guess who’s liable to end up following suit?

14 thoughts on “The bloody blood type diet is back”

My Mom definitely went through the blood type diet phase when I was in undergrad. We’re the same blood type so I took a look through her book when I was home. The only part I really remember (other than the absurdity of it – she didn’t follow it for long) was that it described carrots (or beta-carotene) as POISON for my blood type. Those were the actual words. Carrots are poison to me. RIDICULOUS.

Amen! Cannot began to tell you how many I know and they know I am a RD will talk about this great diet (no carbs is still on the minds of many) – nail scratching the chalkboard. Many of them have told me that I am just being a stick in the mud because all I say is, “If you are eating foods from all food groups in moderation (portion control) then you have the best diet you will ever be on!” I smile and walk away – they will figure out one day – just not ready for change :)

I wonder how they even come up with food lists for something like this :S
If I ask a quack (oh god, that rhymes so good) why Type B can’t eat apples, will he just run away? Or is there at least a bogus study behind this?

Hi Andrew, From what I’ve read, this diet derives food lists based on when your blood type “evolved,” and which particular foods were available and widely consumed at that time. So, for example, the “oldest” or most ancient blood type is purported to be type O. Since we apparently ate a meat heavy, paleo type diet at this time in evolution (really, how can we know this?!), but did not eat dairy and apples, then dairy and apples aren’t allowed on a type O diet. Needless to say, this is less than scientific, as we don’t have enough evidence to say with certainty exactly what humans ate 10s of thousands of years ago. Although, what evidence exists suggests it contained plenty of plant foods! Check this out: